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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29460234">the art of the mind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29'>Ro29</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Gen, Inspired by Soft Wars Series - Project0506, Introspection, Kinda, Light Angst, Mental Health Issues, Nova Feels, Touch-Starved CC-1138 | Bacara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:01:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29460234</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bacara finds what it is in a man that will make him endure and he speaks it into being.</p><p>Jet’s learned how to give Bacara what he needs to make himself keep going, even when he’d probably find a way to keep going without it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alpha-Ø2 | Spar &amp; CC-1993 | Jet, CC-1138 | Bacara &amp; CC-1993 | Jet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Messing around in the Soft Wars Sandbox [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Open Source Soft Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the art of the mind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts">Project0506</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/gifts">SailorSol</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210752">Journeymen</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506">Project0506</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one is all Projie and Sol's fault and I'm....I have a lot of emotions and i just lskfjsdf they made me sad and threw ideas out and i, being me, picked them up and made this thing happen.</p><p>Anyways yeah, I'm sad.</p><p>Also warning, i am far from a mental health expert and it is entirely possible i fucked something up in this. Many apologies if i did.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Marine stands steady, a stalwart protector of the men he has left. He stands alone, apart from his men. Not above, just — not beside, a disconnect.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara has never tried to intentionally place himself or his Marines above the other <em>vode</em>. He does anyways, in little ways. Marines are made to survive, are built to endure, have different ways of training.</p><p> </p><p><em>Better</em> ways of training The Marine seems to think.</p><p> </p><p>Jet doesn’t hold it against him, his Winders attempt to follow suit.</p><p> </p><p>They're hidden here — not safe, they are never safe on this side of the Blockade, always ready to move and to fight — but they are hidden for now and Winder folds Nova into their care.</p><p> </p><p>His Winders give the Marines what they need to go on, and Jet watches Bacara struggle to be something other than The Marine.</p><p> </p><p>The Marine stands apart from his men and Jet's Winders, and slowly, ever so slowly, unpacks Bacara from behind the shell.</p><p> </p><p>There is nothing of Bacara that shines through the shell of the Marine, and everytime he unpacks himself from it, it takes just that little bit longer.</p><p> </p><p>Jet fears that one day Bacara will forget how to. Will lose himself to that empty shell completely.</p><p> </p><p>It is not a new fear, though the shape of it has changed.</p><p> </p><p>Learning there was still a man behind the Marine has led to more worrying than Jet knows what to do with, more than he can show.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t regret it. The Marine is untouchable to most, Bacara is a man holding his Marines together with his gauntlets and spite and faith alone.</p><p> </p><p>The Marine sheds as much of his shell as he ever allows, and Bacara is a tired wraith standing alone.</p><p> </p><p>Jet makes the last steps up the ridge, settles himself beside Bacara, a drink in each hand and a casual he doesn't feel projected in every line of his body.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a careful line to walk, when someone’s close to a tipping point.</p><p> </p><p>There was a time when the tipping point’s were impossible to see, the grappling hook grip Jet reached out never caught, the attempts to hold and help brushed off a shell like beskar with little more than a breath.</p><p> </p><p>Jet’s learned, since then. Learned how to get the fragile lines anchored into reticent men, how to find the cracks and mend them as best he can, how to find what it is Bacara needs and won’t ever ask for.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara finds what it is in a man that will make him endure and he speaks it into being.</p><p> </p><p>Jet’s learned how to give Bacara what he needs to make himself keep going, even when he’d probably find a way to keep going without it.</p><p> </p><p>Jet’s Winders give the Marines what they need to survive, Jet gives Bacara all he can to keep The Marine from becoming all he is.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara is silent as he takes the drink Jet offers, silent as he sips at it, silent as he lets it settle on his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara is a man of few words, the ones he chooses to use are always carefully thought out, even when they are not, always, what he means.</p><p> </p><p>Jet takes a drink from his bottle, dark and bubbly, not alcohol but something sweet and spicy that settles on his tongue with a twist.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara’s head tilts slightly, his fingers twitch the barest hint around the bottle’s neck and he drinks it forced slow.</p><p> </p><p>Jet will have to try and get his hands on this kind again then, if Bacara likes it that much.</p><p> </p><p>“Your men’ll start thinking you’re a ghost if you haunt this spot any longer.”</p><p> </p><p>Bacara’s eyes flick to him, face unamused and eyebrow just slightly raised.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not a bad day then, though it could still maybe slide that way. A functional day, which is the best Jet can really ask for. Functional is the constant here, and it’s better than the bad days, a miracle away from the worst ones.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a scale with these types of thing’s Jet knows, has seen how easy it is to slip down the scale from something small, has seen how hard it is to claw the way back up it.</p><p> </p><p>He remembers the way Spar — when Jet had still been small enough he hadn’t had any armour yet — would sometimes go days answering to no name but ‘Fett’, remembers too how even when those days — the worst days — lessened in quantity, they always remained something terrifying.</p><p> </p><p>(He remembers, guiltily, clutching onto Fenn’s arm tight enough to bruise, desperation lacing his every move and terror not quite hidden well enough, young voice high with it.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>What if he never stops thinking he’s the Prime? What if he goes away forever?”</em>)</p><p> </p><p>There is a type of balancing act here, to help keep a functional day from slipping to a bad one, a bad one to a worse one.</p><p> </p><p>Jet takes another sip of the spicy sweet drink, gestures down to where Winder has folded Nova in. To the Novas who hold the non-standard supplies Winder was able to bring in their hands like a lifeline, the clusters where Winders share gossip from the Republic side of the Blockade and Novas eat it up like drowning men.</p><p> </p><p>They both pretend not to see the Novas who wrap themselves around and pressed between Winders, shaking apart silently in ways the brothers around them pretend they don’t notice.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara tilts his head, takes another sip of his drink and lets it settle on his tongue again as he finds the words he wants.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s better for them,” he says, voice sure and stubbornly set in his belief, “if I’m not there.”</p><p> </p><p>He believes it wholeheartedly and Jet struggles not to call <em>osik </em>immediately and viciously.</p><p> </p><p>It’s better for them, Bacara says, and Jet thinks maybe, possibly, he means that he will somehow ruin something.</p><p> </p><p>Jet, for all his knowing, has long come to terms with the fact he might never know Bacara well enough to read that from him.</p><p> </p><p>They sit in the alcove, above and apart from their men, and they drink and Jet wonders if Bacara realizes just how much he leans into Jet’s space, shoulders sloping towards Jet’s and just shy of touching.</p><p> </p><p>Jet takes another sip and lets his arm fall, loose-limbed and natural, across that tiny distance to press solid against Bacara’s.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara goes cornered <em>strill</em> tense and wavers, moves as if to pull away. Jet counts the breaths as slowly, <em>slowly</em>, he relaxes to something less painfully stiff, presses into it in what must be unconscious action.</p><p> </p><p>He smiles, moves arm up and around armoured shoulders with ease, “What kind of ghost would you be then, you think? Other than the sort that haunts empty alcoves and stares.”</p><p> </p><p>Bacara’s glare sparks laughter deep in his chest, and he jostles Bacara with it, feels the tenseness winding back into Bacara’s bones and pulls away with ease, still smiling.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara twitches towards him, almost slipping towards the contact before catching himself.</p><p> </p><p>Jet doesn't wince at his own misstep, hums instead.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Would you be one with regrets?’ </em>he almost asks, can’t make the words slip out from behind his teeth, the weight of the thinner than silk thread line between a functional day and a bad one presses heavy.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’d be an annoying one,” he says, a beat later when Bacara shows no sign of speaking, “it’d be great fun, I think.” he pauses, hums, watches the shaky way one of the Nova’s clutches onto a candy, lets his eyes wander away.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara huffs next to him, takes another drink and murmurs, “Aren’t you already?”</p><p> </p><p>It’s a victory, and Jet snorts, pleased relief rolling down his spine.</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, c’mon now,” he pokes, takes the annoyance like a greedy man and breathes a prayer of thanks to The Lady and any other god he’s managed to wring dry of luck today in his desperation to keep the deadness of empty-shelled stillness away, “no need to wound a man like that.”</p><p> </p><p>Bacara hums and Jet glares mock outrage, taps fingers against his shoulder and rolls his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>They settle and Jet prattles on, weaves words into stories with flourish, talks enough for both of them and musters the energy that seems all drained out of Bacara. His fingers keep their steady beat across Bacara’s shoulders, and they breathe.</p><p> </p><p>There was once, a long time ago, when Spar had spun them around, Jag and him, and held them as they laughed and called them by the wrong names. They hadn’t known what to do then, hadn’t known how to help when Spar’d gone deadly silent, stared at them and didn’t see them and all the poking and prodding and tiny arms wrapped around him in the world could help.</p><p> </p><p>Fenn hadn’t had an answer for them, couldn’t tell them what to do to help Spar, how to grab hold of him and keep him beside them, stop him from slipping down into dark places or so far away from them that they couldn’t reach him.</p><p> </p><p><em>‘His bucket is a bit rattled,’ </em>99 had explained, voice soft and arms wrapped around them, <em>‘he gets pulled away and can’t find his way back too easy, gets confused sometimes and can’t figure out his footing. You gotta be gentle, but you don’t gotta treat him </em><em>like he’s bout to break, that’ll hurt more.’</em></p><p> </p><p><em>‘What do we do then?’ </em>Jag had asked and 99 had smiled gentle.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Be steady,” </em>he whispered,<em> “be solid, reach out to him and test the waters, find the standing of that moment and plan around it, don’t jump at him until you’ve got it, try your best not to hold it against him. Hug him when he needs it, try to help make him laugh before he’d ever think to ask.’</em></p><p> </p><p><em>‘And don’t</em>,” he’d said, eyes serious and face stern, “<em>try to be the ground beneath his feet, don’t carry that weight alone. Reach out to him and help how you can and love him and do your best to understand. But he’s gotta reach back, he’s gotta get his foot in the foothold and climb it himself.’</em></p><p> </p><p>Jet remembers thinking that it wasn’t fair, that they couldn’t just reach out and make Spar better, couldn’t do the work for him.</p><p> </p><p>Bacara leans into Jet’s space, an almost empty drink in his hand and eyes watching the men below them and Jet knows that he <em>could </em>just fight and wrangle and find a way to make Bacara come back to the rest of their men before he’s ready, could try and press Bacara into being better with vicious pointed words and dares.</p><p> </p><p>He knows that none of it would work, knows that it would make things worse, knows that would break trust in ways neither of them might notice at first.</p><p> </p><p>And Bacara wouldn’t be able to stomach it in the same way Spar wouldn’t have, couldn’t take that sort of thing given to him and felt stable.</p><p> </p><p>Jet weaves stories out of nothing and Bacara presses into his touch and they finish off their drinks as the men below them find ways to stand tall.</p><p> </p><p>Today is a functional day, and that is the best any of them can think to ask for on this side of the Blockade. The Marines piece themselves back together enough that they won’t crumble the next hit they take, and Bacara is still able to find his way back and outside of that corpse-stillness that breathes fear into Jet’s lungs.</p><p> </p><p>It’s enough, for now, and Jet and his Winders do what they can to ensure it will be enough for Bacara and his Nova’s to do more than just survive to the next resupply.</p><p> </p><p>Jet breathes and it’s a prayer. Speaks and it’s desperation barely hidden.</p><p> </p><p>The sound of Bacara’s huffed amusement is worth it’s weight in <em>beskar,</em> and twice as precious.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just......i wanna give them hugs...im....<em>*sobs*</em></p><p>If you want to find me other places I have a <a href="https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com">writing tumblr</a> and a <a href="https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com">fandom tumblr</a> </p><p>Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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